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| In Omne Tempus - For What's Inside Awaking by Holly (0 Reviews) | | - - - abc |  | | | Chapter Twelve
For What’s Inside Awaking
“I don’ have to leave, sweetling.”
As a matter of fact, he wanted to do anything but. If not for the ache that shuddered through him at the thought of more imposed physical distance between them, then certainly for the ache that shown in her eyes. It was strange; a mere twenty-four hours of being this close to her, and all of his senses were both calmer than before, but also never closer to being completely out of control.
The look on her face all but begged for him to stay.
She’s beginnin’ to feel it.
Buffy didn’t have a demon to answer to. A demon that screamed and snarled and played at the lasting ends of her control. He didn’t know, honestly, if that made it better or worse for her; the time they had together, though, seemed to wear her down. He’d seen shades of it the night before after she’d kissed him. When she’d told him that she was losing control, and he was the one that made her feel that way.
That had nearly unmade him. Just knowing that he had a sliver of the same effect on her; that after the thought of her had tortured him for fourteen years, he was getting some of his own back, was unspeakably delicious.
The look in her eyes tonight broke all boundaries.
“No,” she said with some difficulty, leaning against the doorway in the kitchen, playing absently with the lapels of his duster, her eyes glued to his chest. “You need to go.”
“’d feel better if you sounded like you meant that.”
Buffy drew in a sharp breath and met his gaze. “I don’t mean it. I don’t really want you to leave.”
“I don’ have to.”
“Yes, you do.” She shuddered and smiled weakly. “My…if you don’t leave, I don’t think I’ll…”
Spike exhaled softly, pressing his lips to her forehead. “I’m not a patient man, sweetheart,” he murmured. “These past few years have nearly done me in. An’ now that I know you…” He ran a hand down her arm. “Now that I’ve tasted you…’s gonna be even harder for me to stay away.”
She worried a lip between her teeth. “I know,” she said. “It’s still…it’s just a little much for me to take, okay?”
“You know I’d never do anythin’ to hurt you, right?”
Her eyes shimmered. “You’ve killed slayers before.”
“Buffy, I…” He heaved a deep sigh. “What I’ve done can’t be changed. I know your Watcher…you don’t really think I’d do anythin’ to cause you pain, do you?”
She studied him for a long minute. “No,” she said, glancing down. “Giles was just worried about me. Worried…I think he knows something, about the mate thing and the glowy eyes. You were what he researched first.”
Spike forced a smile. He had no doubt that the Watcher knew something. While his past indiscretions had dealt specifically with slayers, he knew enough to grasp that knowledge surrounding slayers was pretty much universal in the world of the Council. Merrick had known something about her three years earlier, and while he had displayed surprise at Spike’s declaration that Buffy was mated to a vampire, there wasn’t astonishment. There wasn’t denial. There wasn’t anything that would suggest the revelation came as a total shock.
The Watcher knew something, and it was time to figure out what.
He’d waited long enough.
“I won’ be far,” he said. “’F you need me, luv, I’ll feel it.”
A look of wonder flashed across her eyes. “How?”
He smiled softly. “The same way I felt your pain when I started to leave earlier,” he explained. “When you…I think the claim’s growin’ stronger…more agitated. An’ now that I’ve tasted you…” He marveled at the shyness that sparked her gaze before she lowered her eyes. She was tainted innocence; his only remaining temptation. How it was that a girl like her could bring him so quickly to his knees, he didn’t know. He’d been hers from the moment her pretty green eyes met his. That flicker before they turned to gold. That fraction of an instant when she wasn’t his mate—when she was simply Buffy. Yes, he’d belonged to her even then—and now all over again, simply in a manner that had evolved into something spectacular. “Now that I’ve tasted you…taken blood, the demon’s gonna crave the ritual even more. ‘S gonna be even harder to…but I won’. Not until you’re ready.”
Buffy looked grateful at that, even though he could tell she was still deeply shaken by the idea of being his mate at all. Of being cornered into a relationship she wasn’t ready for, a commitment too grand for her young mind to grasp. She wanted him; oh, there was no doubt that she wanted him. He felt it with every breath she took. She simply wasn’t ready for what it meant.
Which was only fair. He’d had years to get used to the idea.
“I…I’m sorry,” she said, startling him. “About earlier…losing my temper and all. Well, I just think that…it’s all so much, you know? Vampire, mate, the entire thing just scares me. And I want you.” She glanced down, flushing brilliantly as his awed gaze took her in. “I want you and that’s just strange…for me. I’ve never wanted anyone, and suddenly you’re here and it’s just…it’s wonderful, really…but it scares me. More than any vampire or demon or apocalypse or—well—you name it has scared me. I don’t get scared, Spike. Not like that. But you…” Her eyes hazed with tears. “I just…if the claim’s as strong as this, does that mean what I feel isn’t real? That my emotions are being toyed with…is that the draw between the claim or…” She shook her head and glanced down. “I need it to be real. Whatever it is…I need it to be real.”
Spike drew in a sharp breath. Christ, he wanted nothing more than to reassure her fears. He wanted to drop to his knees and wrap his arms around her and tell her that claims didn’t equal love. That the claims he’d seen in his time had been based on anything but love. That what she was feeling was genuine—it had to be—because love was one of the only powers in the world that couldn’t be fabricated.
But she hadn’t said love. She hadn’t. And he wouldn’t fool himself otherwise.
“I know, sweetling,” he said softly. Me, too.
A very still beat stretched between them.
“You’ll feel me?” she asked, eyes wide and vulnerable. “If I need…if there’s anything…”
“I’ll feel it.”
An’ you’ll feel me.
He didn’t tell her that, though. He didn’t want to frighten her anymore than she was already.
And he didn’t want her to know exactly how close he intended to be throughout the night.
“Okay.” Buffy smiled softly, then tentatively brushed her lips against his. Her touch was so soft, so tender, so heartfelt, that he nearly felt himself moved to tears. There was no way he was giving this up. These past few hours around her had been more than intoxicating; they’d given him a reason he hadn’t foreseen in all the years spent waiting for her. A reason to see the day after her eighteenth birthday. A reason to go on after this period of waiting was over.
He’d never really thought about the future; he’d spent so much time obsessed with the deadline. But she would be his. The day would come and pass, and she would still be there the next morning. Buffy belonged to him. He felt it with more than the pangs of an incomplete claim. It was there in her touch as she cupped his cheek. There in the softness of her kisses as her lips moved over his. There in the hesitant inquiry of her tongue, stroking his softly, lulling his demon into a calm he’d never before experienced. Lulling him even as she unwittingly stroked a growing fire of passion. She was a little girl playing with matches near a container of spilled gasoline, and she didn’t even know it.
“Buffy,” he murmured, reluctantly pulling away from her kisses, shivering at the moan of complaint that rumbled through her body. “Baby, ‘f we keep at this, I’m not leavin’.”
She looked confused for a minute, then her eyes widened. Her surprise charmed him; her sweet virtue. She was panting, her pelvis pressed against his denim-clad erection, and the air hung with the scent of her arousal.
“You drastically underestimate how badly I want you,” he told her quietly.
“Ohhh…”
“An’ I’ve been rightly chivalrous about it thus far…’cept for the thing.” He glanced down. “But ‘f you’re not ready for this, you can’t jus’…I need to be near you, an’ at the same time, it tests me ‘cause I also need to…” Spike drew in a deep breath and shook his head. “I better go.”
“Spike—”
“No, I need to go.” He brushed another kiss across her lips, then at her brow. “I’ll be close.”
That was it. He turned and forced himself away, ignoring the snarl of the demon as it rose in the face of her confusion. Pangs of separation were expected. He’d been experiencing them for years now. And granted, while they were stronger than they ever had been before, the strain was similarly new to her. She didn’t know what she was feeling, or how to handle it.
Spike was resigned. He knew that she was his destiny. Nothing could change that.
Only now, he wanted to know why.
And he knew who had the answer.
*~*~*
The past few years had taught Spike that Rupert Giles was a creature of habit. It was the night of a school dance, and being an authority figure of said school, the Watcher was stationed reliably at the library. Even if the dance was being held at the Bronze, and nowhere near the school grounds.
And just as predictably, the old man was pouring over a stack of dusty books. Likely researching the dirty secrets of the Order. The family name he’d given to Buffy so that she would be on guard. So that she would know exactly what she was up against.
“Y’know,” Spike drawled, “’f you knew we were mated, it’d’ve made more sense for you to have told her yourself. Leas’ the girl wouldn’t’ve been so bloody off guard tonight.”
Giles started and jerked up. “Oh dear Lord.”
“My sentiments exactly, Rupes.”
“William the Bloody.”
He smirked. “’S Spike nowadays, mate. Has been for over a century.”
“What are you doing here?”
The vampire heaved a sigh, as though he was extremely put out, and stepped forward. “Well, I have a bit of a problem,” he said. “An’ I think you know what it is.”
“I told her what I had to,” Giles said. There was no want of denial; Spike hadn’t expected he’d find any. And for that, the Watcher was a refreshing breath of air, unneeded as it was. At least there were no mind games, and he could count on the bloke to be straightforward. “I wanted her to know exactly who she was dealing with.”
“We’re mates, you know. ‘S not like knowin’ my whole bleedin’ history’s gonna change that.”
“I know.”
“An’ I also know you won’ stake me.”
“You’re right,” Giles acknowledged with a nod. “Staking you would be the worst thing for her. Especially now that you’ve…”
Spike’s eyes narrowed. “An’ how is it that you’re not surprised that she’s my mate?” he demanded. “In a hundred years, I’ve never heard—”
“Because she’s the Slayer.”
There was a heavy pause. “What?”
Giles shook his head. “It was in Merrick’s diaries, you know,” he said. “Not you…or your relationship to Buffy, but he had started researching the connection between slayers and the vampires that are…their mates.”
That was it. Spike was effectively stunned speechless.
Slayers…and vampires…
“You’re not the first,” the Watcher explained. “Every slayer called has a vampire mate. That’s the way it is. You are, however, the first to have found your mate…in the form of a slayer…that we know of.”
“How is that possible?”
“You’re of the same mold. You and Buffy…vampires and slayers. The powers intended for slayers to be the equal, but, as you know there is only one. Therefore, as it was written, every slayer would have a mate in a vampire. One with a particular knack for…redemption.” He said the last like it was a disease, and Spike couldn’t help but agree with him. His mind, however, was frozen with astonishment.
Not unique after all.
Just a sodding pansy to the forces.
“It simply has never happened before,” Giles concluded. “It’s in Watcher’s Diaries, catalogued thoroughly in the Council, and every Watcher must live knowing that his slayer might be the one to break the standard. Might be the one who finds her mate. It’s been whispered now for centuries…but I knew Buffy would. Merrick’s indication notwithstanding…Buffy is…extraordinary.”
Spike’s eyes darkened. “So naturally, instead of explainin’ everythin’ to her, you give her my ugly past deeds, an’ send her out after me with a mind to kill.”
“I did no such thing.”
“Rot.”
“I told her who you were and what you had done, but I would be entirely foolish to think that she could stake you.”
“An’ bloody yet.”
“You are a vampire, Spike. And since this hasn’t exactly happened before, forgive me if I don’t know what to expect.”
“What the bleedin’ hell about Angelus? Or Darla? Those are the soddin’ vamps you need to be worryin’ about.” The vampire’s eyes darkened. “They’re the ones that are here to kill her. They wanna get back at me for leavin’ the clan. They wanna get back at her for killin’ the Master. An’ you tell her things to give her nightmares of the one vamp in the whole bleedin’ world guaranteed to never hurt her.”
Giles did not look moved. “I’m sorry if I’m not immediately inclined to throw in my trust with a vampire that has, not only murdered slayers, but will be closer to Buffy than any other that you have mentioned.” He paused and shook his head. “I know misleading her was wrong,” he said. “But there is too much of the claim that is shrouded in mystery. Too much that I don’t know about. This has never happened before. Never.”
Spike expelled a deep breath. “I wouldn’t hurt her,” he said. “I’ve been watchin’ over her too bloody long to ever hurt her. She’s my world.”
“And what of Drusilla?”
He balked. “What?”
“I’ve been doing my reading. Drusilla…your sire, correct? Am I to presume she is traveling with the Order?” Giles held up a book. “It’s all here. Everything you did for her in the name of love. Every person you killed to appease her appetite. Every time she saw a dress she liked, you’d make damned sure she got it, with a waiting chalice to quench her thirst.”
There was absolutely nothing he could say to change that, and he had no want of denial. It was, after all, the truth. “Dru is my past,” he said. “She led me to Buffy. As far as I see it, she had a purpose. I mistook her for the other, yeh, but you’re both daft an’ wrong ‘f you think she’s a threat to me an’ my mate.”
“Not a threat. You loved her.”
“Very much.”
“Can you say, honestly, that you feel the same for Buffy? That this blind devotion is to her as she is, and not the ideal?” Giles arched a brow. “I won’t see her hurt, Spike. Bloody mate or not, I will not see her hurt.”
The vampire felt his demon stirring. The old man was just begging for a chunk to be taken out of that overly-pompous arse of his. “I’d walk through fire before I’d hurt her,” he growled. “You’d do better to understand that.”
“I believe that you believe it.”
“’S not enough that it’s true?”
“When you mate with her, Spike, she’s going to become immortal. The part of her that is demon enough to have a vampire mate will take hold. She won’t change, according to the books, but she will be denied what every slayer has a right to. Peace.” Giles heaved a sigh. “Buffy can’t grasp that right now. Immortalizing her will hurt her…and you have to be fairly thick to not see how.”
“So you’re askin’ me to not do what the bleedin’ Powers have set in motion.” Spike shook his head with an incredulous chuckle. “I gotta hand it to you, Rupes, you do have balls of brass.”
“I merely want what’s best for her.”
“So do I.”
“I believe it.” A pause. “But I don’t trust you.”
“’S fair. I don’ trust you, either.” He nodded to the books. “But you’re better off researchin’ the vamps that mean her harm, mate.”
“I intend to.” He paused. “You will consider what I said.”
“Consider, yeh. But ‘f you think your cautionary tale is gonna stand between me an’ what the fates have handed me, you’re off your rocker.” He turned and started heatedly for the doors. “’S not jus’ me, you know,” he said. “Buffy’s gonna feel the need to make it final, too. She needs me jus’ as much as I need her. An’ she might not be as understandin’ ‘bout your twisted sense of logic as I am.”
There was a pause. “You obviously don’t know Buffy very well.”
That was thoroughly laughable. Spike stopped at the entrance and turned. “I know her, Watcher,” he said. “Better than anyone can or will. I’ve been with her for years. An’ in the end, I’ll be the only one who never abandons her.”
That was all he said. All he had to say. His mind was spinning.
And he had a sudden need to be near his girl. Near his mate. To feel her warmth through the glass.
To mull over what he knew now, and consider the wealth of what it meant.
To be continued in Chapter Thirteen: Shining Its Brightest Light…
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